Originally Posted by DotDunThe point is: It's a CA tax law that has no jurisdiction over the OP.

And also because of the OP.

This is the issue in a nutshell; when I get an email from a African Prince; I don't spend a lot of time notarizing documents to explain to them why I don't owe the Sengelese Crown a $1000 paypal payment to get my royal inheritance forwarded to me.

Likewise when California sends me a letter saying if you fail to respond you accept these terms and our 'proposed tax liability' becomes permanent ; my response is to MAYBE make a couple of reasonable calls about it and then; well then I get mad

I think it's pretty interesting that they can 'investigate' to the point where they can get my WA mailing address and number and they can dial "253" to call me but for some reason they expect me to "prove" I am innocent of their baseless allegations -it's just wrong

It common knowledge that states have no jurisdiction outside their boundaries, especially on non-CA-residents and commerce happening in another state.

And the whole point of my tirade is the USCG NVDC is poor evidence of a vessel's location. This has been the only evidence mentioned in this thread that CA has to go on.

It's all there is; I'm also kinda peeved because I HATE "Hollywood" and I found out later that Mr Williams kept the boat in San Pedro or Anaheim anyhow so I do have to change it but I will very likely change it to Olympia just because of this

I LEFT CA in large part because these same A holes charged me property tax on a piece of water that I didn't even own. Early termination fees; little checkboxes that say agree to give up all your rights or don't use the software you paid for'

It does happen each and every day and to me anyway this one is a line in the sand too far well two lines if you count the entire state of Oregon in-between

"It's common knowledge that USCG hailing port has nothing to do with vessel location"

No, that's a common misapprehension.

The spirit of the law, at least, is that the hailing port is..... the port the boat hails from. IE, where the boat is based.

I'm not sure if I disagree with you or not

But I will say that the USCG states clearly that since there is no requirement that boats have different names; "hailing port is used to further identify individual boats"

And again I've seen plenty of "made up" names and I've also seen plenty of boats that were sentimental or heck I've seen 200' ocean yachts with "las Vegas" or other land locked states on them There's no way a megayacht is normally berthed in Lake Tahoe or Kalispell MT

But aside from all of THAT
What gives CA the authority to go after people based on that?

They think it's perfectly reasonable; I don't and I question if they they are making up their own rules or if the legislature actually wrote them a blank check - and even if they did how does that apply across state lines?

I believe the hailing port needs to be a place with a zip code. Perhaps the fictional places you've seen were not actual coast guard documented boats.

Regarding CA coming after you, the question you have to ask is whether or not its worth it. Given time and money, it could be just to stick it to them, but I can't see this not being more costly if you try to fight it.

It's all there is; I'm also kinda peeved because I HATE "Hollywood" and I found out later that Mr Williams kept the boat in San Pedro or Anaheim anyhow so I do have to change it but I will very likely change it to Olympia just because of this

I LEFT CA in large part because these same A holes charged me property tax on a piece of water that I didn't even own. Early termination fees; little checkboxes that say agree to give up all your rights or don't use the software you paid for'

It does happen each and every day and to me anyway this one is a line in the sand too far well two lines if you count the entire state of Oregon in-between

So you did live in California. When did you buy the boat and when did you leave California?

Property taxes and early termination fees when you don't fulfill a lease are common everywhere. Software always comes with limitations and restrictions and actually in many cases you don't own it.

You just seem opposed to rules.

See everything you say so far makes more sense out of California contacting you. How long had the boat been in Washington and was it ever registered there before you? So let's see. You lived in CA, boat was previously registered in California. Sure California would want clarification on the sale. Did you pay sales tax in Washington? Paying the watercraft excise tax?

He ignores it for a year and wonders why? "Waste a few hours? Doesn't he keep a receipt for work done, mooring/dock fees, fuel, electricity bills from where he lives, his WA registration.

He coulda been done with this in the time it took me to type this post.

sheez...

This is not a consitututional issue, it's a tax law issue, like it or not.

Many CA boats go to Mexico and take care of advising their property tax agencies before they leave that they are no longer residents (back to sailorchic's post). Happens all the time.

You're not wrong.

I woulda thought when I wrote Nananana! there might be some clue to a immature Don Quixote part of my personality?

I'm just wondering how far they could actually take it before a judge gets involved?

I've explained it to them Three times
Once with a signed oath
That should be enough but not only do they think I'm a tax evader they are also calling me a liar while simultaneously being incredibly inefficient and wasteful; Sure I "could" resolve this except a) I actually doubt that a notarized copy of three years invoices and receipts will be enough and B) THEY could just as easily ask their counterparts in WA if Sales tax was paid here couldn't they?

Why do we sheeple put up with a state sending out 100000 pieces of mail when one email would suffice?

And the worst part of all of this is that I HATE libertarians! I'm as left wing liberal as they get and this crap ticks me off! I'm not Cliven Bundy over here

So you did live in California. When did you buy the boat and when did you leave California?

Property taxes and early termination fees when you don't fulfill a lease are common everywhere. Software always comes with limitations and restrictions and actually in many cases you don't own it.

You just seem opposed to rules.

See everything you say so far makes more sense out of California contacting you. How long had the boat been in Washington and was it ever registered there before you? So let's see. You lived in CA, boat was previously registered in California. Sure California would want clarification on the sale. Did you pay sales tax in Washington? Paying the watercraft excise tax?

Yeah I lived in california from 07 to 10

Quote:

Property taxes and early termination fees when you don't fulfill a lease are common everywhere.

I bought a boat in CA and paid CA tax; the boat was in long beach for ONE MONTH and then we moved it to a private marina in Redondo beach

In CA; if your boat is in a slip for ONE DAY 1/31 you owe property tax for the year

You say that's common but I know of no similar situation where property tax from a state is assessed on a city to start with; and then beyond that but the city passes that tax on to a renter directly

It's "weird" and the bottom line is I paid them a grand in taxes for a $400 slip I rented for a month - and nobody said F-all to me about it until CA seized my CA income tax refund the following year which is a weird way to find out about a tax you didn't know anything about. so yeah; I'm peeved with these pricks

I sold that boat and left CA in 2010

THIS BOAT has been in WA since AT LEAST 1995; it was documented and registered with WA and has never left the state since I've had it and I bought it in late 2011

Here is the problem....ignore the State of California at your own Risk!
It took us 13 months to get them to stop coming after us while we were in Mexico for boat Sales Tax. We bought the boat in Mexico, lived in Mexico....but they wanted their $7500! They finally relented but if we would have ignored them, they would have just put a lien on the boat and then when we tried to sell it we would have a huge mess on our hands.
I gave them the link to my blog with daily blogs posts for God's Sake but they still said we were in California and trying to hide from the taxes...ha ha ha.

Just keep giving them piles of paperwork and they will eventually go away....took us just over a year to get the dogs off our ass.

I believe the hailing port needs to be a place with a zip code. Perhaps the fictional places you've seen were not actual coast guard documented boats.

Regarding CA coming after you, the question you have to ask is whether or not its worth it. Given time and money, it could be just to stick it to them, but I can't see this not being more costly if you try to fight it.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of lawyers that will take a case like this pro-bono. They'll show a court the error of CA ways and collect their fee from the state.

In fact, it would be curious if CA would actually pursue a USCG Doc lien. If they do without proper evidence (and I'm claiming NVDC is not enough evidence), it could be argued as abuse of power. The court may then go for fines.

IMO, this is nothing more than bullying.

CA tax collectors have a history of such. Just recently they were forced by a court to stop collecting state income tax from gov't workers who retired and moved out of state. CA argued that since the retirement check was issued in CA, they are due income tax even though the recipient lived in another state. The courts explained it to them....

I remember co-workers being chased by CA for 'value on stock options'. The options were granted while they resided in CA, but exercised while living in another state. CA claimed the options gained value while they lived in CA, hence they owed CA tax. This is pure BS, as stock option grants are of zero value until exercised....